#its like. they knew what they were doing with the autism rep. they just. treated it REALLY weirdly

[kordbot]

the one moral that comes out of to the moon is 'never marry a neurotypical'

[matoitech]

Galo’s autistic but do you think he’s good autism rep?

its complicated <3

ok but seriously i really dont know how to answer this because like.. technically i felt ‘represented’ when i watched it and was like oh he does things i do! which id never seen on screen with a protag before (esp a gay one lol? like literally ever?) but at the same time, a lot of things about his character hit hard specifically because of his treatment from other characters in the movie and the writers themselves. by this i mean the ableism. so i dont want to say that he was ‘rep’ because saying something was ‘good rep’ sounds like giving trigger credit for something i dont think they deserve credit on (i wouldnt give trigger points for ‘gay rep’ either. i can talk more abt this if anyones curious; it has more to do with how other studios will misinterpret the action movie romance not as typical for the genre, but ‘bare minimum’ and think that if THEY try it in the same way, they’ll win themselves credit or smth- rather then how the movie wrote galo and lio and their relationship itself, because obviously generally gay people did like promare). 

i do believe they at least were somewhat conscious of what they were doing when they wrote him autistic (what remi said to him in the ova proves that pretty obviously.. not even getting into his character itself and his relationships and arc) because a lot of the time autistic characters will be written accidentally but he definitely has.. purpose.. in his writing. the explicit confirmation to me was that ova line. i already knew he was autistic but you cant insult a heavily autistic-coded character for being autistic and have it not mean something.

but anyway, because the writers basically encouraged ableist treatment of him by fans by like, the jokes abt him in the first place, it.. really is complicated to me and i dont think you can just label him bad rep or good rep, or i cant at least because it really depends on the definition you’re using of what bad/good rep is in the first place! if we’re saying good rep is something you felt represented by then yes to me he was but thats my personal opinion and thats also not something i want the studio to get credit for. or allistic writers will see me say that he was rep and go ‘oh so thats how i can treat my autistic characters and its fine :)’ which is definitely missing how all this works

to me, galo as ‘rep’ just.. gets a pass despite the treatment by the writers. because 1) him being autistic is integrated in a way that i personally resonated with and was interested in, and his traits and stims weren’t ones i’d ever really seen on screen, so i appreciated seeing those 2) the studio didnt try to frame him as good rep. like how spop crew said entrapta was Perfect Rep when she definitely wasnt. trigger never tried to say they were doing some epic powerful representation thing. they couldn’t, because that would mean admitting they treated their purposely autistic character poorly. 3) hes gay and you never see gay autistic protags so i was really happy about it 4) hes just a GOOD character. hes a good person! you don’t typically see autistic characters written like him. hes got more nuance and character and emotion than people think he does. hes actively trying to be a good person. he’s conscious of how he’s treated by people and why. i just Feel It with him man

like i said, it really comes down to personal opinion and influenced by what your definition of 'representation’ in the first place is... and not every autistic person is the same so things that i personally liked and resonated with may have been something another autistic person was frustrated to see. typically i see autistic people like galo a lot, but i have yet to see a lot of opinions on whether they think he’s REP or something. usually we’re just like “wow i love galo, go autistic king”

also you have to look at how he’s treated by the writers, and look at what other writers will do if they see you praising it. we can’t just be happy about things unfortunately we have to be like “i appreciate what you did do right, but you clearly didnt respect him as a character due to his autistic traits, which is shitty” so people dont repeat the same mistakes thinking they’re allowed to get away with it. and its a topic for another day but i think ppls concept of ‘representation’ in general is just kind of.. strange because its more like a box they can check to get more likes than it is doing anything for the actual ppl theyre representing. BUT ANYWAY. I TALKED A LOT. I THINK THIS IS INTERESTING AND I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR OTHER PPLS OPINIONS ON IT